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Is It a Pandemic Yet?

nytimes.com

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Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#101

Post by paganel »

daxorid wrote: post #80
asiachick wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dumb question but what intensive care? Do people need to be on respirators? Need access to drugs only available at ICU? Just curious if any of the things done at an ICU to prevent death really need to be only at the ICU.

Yes, mechanical ventilators and in most cases, supplemental oxygen for roughly 18% of patients. We can expect CFR in the US to be fairly low (approx 2%) as long as the availability of these resources permits treatment for all who need it. After saturation, however, the CFR will move asymptotically toward approx 15%. Medical system saturation is believed to be the main reason the CFR in Hubei is much worse than other…

> After saturation, however, the CFR will move asymptotically toward approx 15%.

> Medical system saturation is believed to be the main reason the CFR in Hubei is much worse than other provinces.

This would practically be a Denial of Service Attack on any health system, no matter the country in which that health system is based in. Which is why it is so important to try to contain the virus spread before we get to the "move asymptotically toward approx 15%" phase.

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#102

Post by ducttape12 »

guramarx11 wrote: post #91
ducttape12 wrote: post #76

Can someone explain to me why coronavirus is getting so much coverage? According to Wikipedia, Coronavirus has killed about 2000 people. Each year smoking kills 480,000 people in the US. In two days smoking will have killed more people in the US than coronavirus has worldwide. Shouldn't we have headlines about this every day? Or any of the other far more deadly things (traffic accidents, heart disease, suicide, etc.)…

smoking is not contagious, a smoker can't infect or kill you directly with cigarettes

Except that according to the CDC, second hand smoke causes 41,000 deaths per year in the US: https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/heal...

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#103

Post by ibdf »

ducttape12 wrote: post #76

Can someone explain to me why coronavirus is getting so much coverage? According to Wikipedia, Coronavirus has killed about 2000 people. Each year smoking kills 480,000 people in the US. In two days smoking will have killed more people in the US than coronavirus has worldwide. Shouldn't we have headlines about this every day? Or any of the other far more deadly things (traffic accidents, heart disease, suicide, etc.)…

I would be ok, if you had compared coronavirus with the flu we have learned to live with, which kills way more people each year... but smoking? is smoking transmitted over the air? If someone smokes next to you, then you will also start smoking? Do you die from smoking in a few days?

Coronavirus is on the news because we can't control it, we can't see it, it can spread without show of symptoms, it can be deadly... has no vaccine - thus the fear of a pandemic.

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#104

Post by blisterpeanuts »

cletus wrote: post #73

So Italy having an arguably uncontained cluster is probably the most troubling part. The EU has extremely porous borders. The chances of this spreading to the other EU members (and the UK) got a lot higher. At least in the US you largely have to come in by air. Yes of course there are land borders. Canada is one but fits the same description of most cross-border travel (apart from to the US) is by air. The border wit…

Summer = fewer colds?

It could be problematic, though, because lots of people travel during the summer. There are probably millions of people queued up to visit Italy, Spain, Britain, etc. The Europeans take long vacations, so populations will be particularly mobile in July and August.

I wonder if the U.S. might be slightly less vulnerable to contagion, since Americans tend to visit beaches, national parks and other less crowded places, whereas in Europe the tourist attractions are in crowded cities.

It's going to be an interesting few months before a vaccine is hopefully found.

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#105

Post by burtonator »

est31 wrote: post #9

> Some 152 cases (and at least three deaths) were confirmed in Italy on Sunday, up from three cases on Thursday. The number of infected people in South Korea jumped to 763 (and six deaths) in just days. To add an important point: In both countries, they have detected covid-19 only well after it has spread inside the country. E.g. in Italy it started with one severely ill patient who went to the hospital and got teste…

If this is asymptomatic do they eventually get sick or do they just harbor the virus?

I don't understand how the virus can be asymptomatic? How does it reproduce and what triggers it to become symptomatic?

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#106

Post by sagichmal »

burpsnard wrote: post #92
yulaow wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The virus is not airborne, it propagates via aerosol so it is very short lived "in the air" and over surfaces.

i read last week that it is indeed airbourne, not only from cough/sneeze but also from flatulence, out to 200 meters

This is not correct.

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#107

Post by ducttape12 »

nathanyukai wrote: post #83
ducttape12 wrote: post #76

Can someone explain to me why coronavirus is getting so much coverage? According to Wikipedia, Coronavirus has killed about 2000 people. Each year smoking kills 480,000 people in the US. In two days smoking will have killed more people in the US than coronavirus has worldwide. Shouldn't we have headlines about this every day? Or any of the other far more deadly things (traffic accidents, heart disease, suicide, etc.)…

well because people are used to those figures and it won't grab people's eyeball anymore. While coronavirus can potentially kill a lot more people if it becomes a global break out.

So it's what I'm thinking, it's the news hyping it up to get clicks, ad impressions, etc? Seems kind of irresponsible to get the public into a frenzy just to make money.

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#108

Post by jonplackett »

burpsnard wrote: post #92
yulaow wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The virus is not airborne, it propagates via aerosol so it is very short lived "in the air" and over surfaces.

i read last week that it is indeed airbourne, not only from cough/sneeze but also from flatulence, out to 200 meters

A claim like this needs a source

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#109

Post by trengorilla »

ropiwqefjnpoa wrote: post #16
Swizec wrote: post #12

We were looking into Covid-19 at the office and after digging through the scariness we realized mortality rate for healthy 30-somethings is around 0.1%. Then we said screw it and stopped worrying. We’re most likely gonna be fine. Even if it becomes widespread the odds are ever in our favor. Plus there’s already a few confirmed cases in SFBA so ... Edit: for the downvoters, I’m not say spread disease with wonton aband…

Yeah, I stopped worrying a few weeks back after I saw the mortality rate. It's basically a highly virulent flu with the same risk factors. Not on the same level as sars and the like.

Out of coronavirus cases that have actually fully resolved (so the patient has either recovered or died) 9% of the cases have ended in death. In 22% of ongoing cases the patient is in critical condition. How in the fuck is that a "highly virulent flu with the same risk factors"? LOL

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#110

Post by gnulinux »

Udik wrote: post #100
gnulinux wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it have to be China? Couldn't it be Thailand/Singapore/S.Korea/Japan/Israel/Iran etc?

True, that would have been more correct. However, keep in mind that these people who are found ill now in Italy probably have contracted the virus weeks ago, before it started spreading substantially to other countries. Or before we knew it was already spreading anyway.

I'm strongly skeptical. Current research suggest mean incubation time is 5 days and stddev is 2 days. That means most cases will be asymptomatic within a week. Clearly, there were cases in the countries I listed above ~10 days ago, except Israel and maybe Iran was still in its infancy. The >20 days incubation time we see in news seems sensational and there is no research to back it up, except one non-peer-review paper published a few weeks ago.
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